At the Barnes
“Flayed Rabbit” by Chaim Soutine, 1921, Barnes Foundation
At the quiet side of a doorway,
around the corner from the Cézanne apples
and rosy shouldered Renoir nudes,
in requisite carved and gilded frame,
Soutine’s rabbit lays raw and naked,
centered on the white sheet, slit,
skinned, splayed with forelegs upraised.
I watch how others turn aside and quick
step from the room, hear crucifixion…
drained offering…a godless world.
And I wonder, did Soutine pity the gentle
creature he painted? Was he thinking
of Paschendale or the Marne, rotting still below
ground, like the maggoty hare in his studio?
Rembrandt’s ox? Titian’s Marsyas? A study
in reds and yellow? Would he even have cared
to know his lapin ecorché stops us still?
First published in Ekphrasis
around the corner from the Cézanne apples
and rosy shouldered Renoir nudes,
in requisite carved and gilded frame,
Soutine’s rabbit lays raw and naked,
centered on the white sheet, slit,
skinned, splayed with forelegs upraised.
I watch how others turn aside and quick
step from the room, hear crucifixion…
drained offering…a godless world.
And I wonder, did Soutine pity the gentle
creature he painted? Was he thinking
of Paschendale or the Marne, rotting still below
ground, like the maggoty hare in his studio?
Rembrandt’s ox? Titian’s Marsyas? A study
in reds and yellow? Would he even have cared
to know his lapin ecorché stops us still?
First published in Ekphrasis
